A Melody My Heart Whispers
by Irrevocable Truth
Summary: Because for every new love, for every bittersweet heartache ..there's that one line, in that one song, that your heart sings to.
1. Out of My Element

**Note**: The characters are just a little OOC, and they're a bit older in this fic than they really are :)

.

**Out of My Element  
**By: Irrevocable Truth  
Dedicated to: r u k a r u – r o m a n c e . p a s s i o n  
Inspiration from: Chemicals React, Aly & AJ*; Chemistry I Lessons

.

.

Chemistry was all about matter and change. It was about the physics of things, about the nature and behavior of substances. Their properties, their reactions. It was about compounds, elements chemically united in fixed proportions. It was about something more than the eyes could comprehend.

She had taken an inclination towards all of this. She loved the way nature was governed by laws. Law of Multiple Proportions, Law of Conservation of Mass: topics far beyond her age, but nevertheless continuously fascinating her. It gave her a sense of security. She didn't understand half the things she was reading about, but she was all the same eager to read more and more about the subject.

Something about the atoms and their subatomic particles— electrons attracting, repelling; atoms vying for stability.

And all this majesty, all this complexity: they were all happening; and people – of all kinds, not just the blind Aoi Hyuuga this time – couldn't even see it.

**.**

The way her lips moved.  
The way she has to hold on to his hand, because she couldn't see, and he was her guide.  
The way a lone strand of hair was astray on her forehead, the rest in a messy ponytail.  
The way she always looked like she had make-up on.

He was attracted to all of it—all of _her_— in the same way electrons of an atom are caught up in electronegativity.

He found it refreshing. The way Aoi would say, "What's it like outside, today?" and smile, as if remembering some memory from long ago, perhaps of a picnic on a Sunday afternoon with her family.

And Youichi would describe it, in detail, just how she liked it. How the trees were green, or how the trees were letting go of their leaves. How the sun was shining, or how the raindrops fell gingerly.

Her breath would hitch, every time, as if taking it all in, and she'd sigh and whisper, "Thanks". His world would pause, lingering on how beautiful she could make one word sound.

She was blind, and he wasn't, but he always felt like she was one step ahead, like she could _see_ more than he could. She was full of hopes, full of questions.

He could never tell apart which one was strong, and which one was weak: was it she who dared to dream, or was it he who faced reality?

**.**

"I think sometimes that maybe I'm a bit messed up," he confesses. He blushes, and he's glad she can't see, because no guy would ever say that to just anyone. Pride was a sin, but it was a sin guys couldn't seem to escape that easily.

Her hands grip his a little tighter, concerned. When she doesn't speak, he continues. "People who like me, people that_ I_ like ..they're all afraid of my alice. They're afraid, because I'm dangerous. I'm a threat."

She leans her head on his shoulder, her head brushing against his cheek. There is silence, before she says, "Yes, you're very messed-up."

He inhales sharply, because he hadn't expected her to say that. "But you know what, You-kun?"

"What?"

She smiles. "I'm messed up, too. We all are." She stands up from the bench where they are seated, and he almost instantly recognizes the absence of her warmth beside him.

"Even the atoms: they're just as equally lost and messed up. But they're always hoping to be stable. And sometimes that's why bonds exist and everything," she declares. "Or at least that's how I understand my brother's textbook on it, anyway."

She laughs, and the wind carries it away.

"And you wanna know something else, Youichi-kun?" She kneels in front of him, her hands clasped together, as if in prayer.

"Hm?" He replies.

"_I_ like you, and I'm not afraid." Her voice is sincere; sure as the laws of nature.

He bends down to kiss her, because it's the only thing he can do right now. The tides were pulling him in, captivating him, and it was too hard to breathe, let alone formulate words.

His lips against hers feels soft, sweet ..real.

And that moment, to Aoi, that moment felt like resisting the forces of physics. It felt like defying gravity; it felt like flying. They were like two atoms in a molecule, inseparably combined. To Youichi, the world was in slow motion: things were happening, emotions were flaring, and they were all much too fast for him to keep up. And everything, this kiss, was a kaleidoscope of colors.

.

_And just like that  
__The chemicals react.*_

**.**

***Disclaimer: **Higuchi Tachibana owns Gakuen Alice, but I trust that you know that already :) Chemicals React was sung by Aly & AJ, and they own the lyrics to that song.

**Author's Note**: This is my first _Aoi _x _Youichi_ fic, so any kind of feedback will be really helpful. Also, I hope you don't mind that this fic was a bit ..nerdy. I tried to make the Chem stuff just paraphernalia to the main story so that even those who haven't taken them up can appreciate the fic. This was short, yes. Fluffy, yes. Pointless, maybe. Hope you liked it anyway! :))


	2. Trail of Dust

**Trail of Dust  
**By: Irrevocable Truth  
Dedicated to: h a p p y 0 8  
Inspiration: Sunburn, Owl City*

**x-x-x**

"Tch," Natsume Hyuuga scoffed in denial. "I'm not afraid of them, okay? So just ..shut up." He put on his earphones and plopped down on Mikan's soft couch. As much as he'd hate to admit it, he was still darn freaked out whenever he saw those freaky disease-carrying organisms.

Mikan flipped through the pages of a 23-page photocopy their History teacher had dutifully handed out. Something about post war events, was it? "Oh _really_ now?"

He stared at her for a while with something akin to distaste, pretended like the volume was too loud, and uttered a rushed, "Hn."

She giggled, and decided to ignore it. She played with her neon orange highlighter, performing fancy tricks Koko taught her. He had run up to her excitedly on an August afternoon, a little right around after class, exclaiming, "I did it! I did it. I got the pen trick right and everything ..I know how to spin my pen 360 degrees around!"

He had cheerfully announced it to each member of Class B, and just as enthusiastically offered to teach everyone how to do it themselves. Mikan was one of the [pitifully few] more eager learners, and had fussed about it so much when she got the hang of it.

She sighed a happy, exhausted kind of sigh. "Wahh," she wailed, "I just recalled one of _the _Natsume Hyuuga's secrets, hot guy slash genius of Alice Academy, and I have to sit around this dope of a room of mine memorizing this cryptic –HEY, just because I don't have the same level as grades as you do doesn't mean I don't know what cryptic means, so don't do that eyebrow raising thing of yours—poem by some neurotic man getting all metaphorical and adding bees and meowing cats to an already complicated thing!"

"So you admit you think I'm _hot_," he deadpanned.

"Hey!" she snapped. "You know that's not—"

"You said so yourself." He repeated:"Natsume Hyuuga's secrets, **hot guy slash genius** of—"

"Alright, alright, already!" She bit her lip. "So maybe I did."

He smirked in triumph and she resumed memorization, preparing for tomorrow's exam, and Natsume carried on listening to a song from _All Time Low*_. When she finished, she looked sideways, spying Natsume, asleep on her couch.

"Ne, Natsume-kun!" She jumped from her swiveling chair and dived down to sit beside Natsume, effectively waking him up. She swiped the earphones away from his ears. "I really, really, _really_ can't believe you're **still **afraid of cockroaches!" She burst into laughter at the mere thought of such a comical phobia for a guy.

"Shut up, stupid," he muttered half-embarrassedly. "At least I'm not scared of the freakin' darkness."

"Hey, that's not tru—" she was about to deny it, but was cut off abruptly by the flickering lights.

"Eep," she squeaked, scrambling for Natsume's hands and gripping it tightly with her own just as the power went out. Her head was pressed against his chest, her body a bit too close, seeking a sort of refuge in the darkness.

He smirked. "You were saying?"

"I was saying I liked you, jerk," she whispered, too soft for him to hear, especially with girls screaming, jostling about and looking for flashlights.

"What?"

She smiled. Sometimes the darkness was just the perfect place for secrets. "Nothing."

_It's funny how she recalls what I can't remember now.*_

**x-x-x**

The scent of the summer was almost heavenly. Mikan Sakura breathed it all in, pretending as though if she inhaled enough of this smell, it would linger forever in a reservoir in her heart for when she needed a lift of her spirits.

She was on a beach swing, raising her feet up as high as they could go (occasionally giggling as she wiggled her toes, because she'd kicked off her flip flops and they were now laying long since forgotten on the sand), and pushing back as much as her weight allowed. Natsume was sitting on the other swing, except he wasn't really moving; he was just sitting there, watching her.

"_Natsumeee_," she drawled, swinging higher and higher off the ground.

"Stop swinging so high, idiot."

Mikan laughed. "But it feels like flying, Natsume. It feels like swinging from rooftop to rooftop!"

He paused, analyzing her statement.

She didn't need to_ feel_ like flying, because in his eyes she was an angel. He didn't believe in God, but she made him believe in angels.

Before he knew it, there was a loud thud.

Then there was Mikan, on the sand, her body all scrunched up. She'd fallen from way high up the swing, and now here she was, unconscious in Natsume's arms.

**x-x-x**

Amnesia. The doctor said she had both retrograde and anterograde amnesia: difficulty remembering the things that had happened before, trouble with memorizing new things. They were all just bits and pieces to her now.

Would she remember him, Natsume'd asked. Would she know who he was, would she remember the things they did together?

"Maybe," the white-coated man with the beard had said, predominantly uncertain.

"_Maybe?_" Natsume pressed.

With a sentence ("Yes, maybe") he walked away, and Natsume resisted the urge to burn him alive to be rid of his aggravating ambiguity.

Because how can this girl, this girl with the beautiful tresses and the warm smile, this girl who remembered the little details, the very thing that made her adorable, how could she forget?

**x-x-x**

"Hi," she greeted as he entered the room. And slowly, a bit apprehensively, she smiled.

For a moment he forgot her predicament, and he prayed (though he didn't believe in miracles). He prayed ardently, a short silent prayer of hope; he prayed she'd recall. Because maybe, he mused, God saved angels.

But there were no miracles for Natsume Hyuuga. After all, how can one's wish be granted by something he doesn't believe in?

"Who are you again?" she chirped.

His heart broke. He was a stranger again. Just when he'd accepted her: something tangible, something real. Something he could believe in, even if dreams really didn't come true and even if miracles were far-fetched.

She smiled, that wonderful radiant smile that she used when she'd coax him and say, "Oh, don't worry, Natsume-kun. You know I'll always be here for you!"

His heart was still breaking, but her smile made it half as horrible.

_It's awkward but I'll confess she's all I can think about  
__And it's funny how I recall what she can't remember now.*_

**x-x-x**

***Disclaimer: **I do not own Gakuen Alice, because if I did it wouldn't be half as humorous :)) Sunburn was sung by Owl City (and the lines from their song that appear in this fic are theirs), and All Time Low is an American band. They're all not mine, and I do not claim ownership of them in any way :)

**Author's Note: **_Not my best story. _I've used amnesia as an element for one of my stories before, but I only realized it after I posted this. The story's a little ..cliche, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway :) Any violent reactions, comments, suggestions, or just plain randomness is best expressed in a review ;) Have a good day.


	3. As The World Spins

**As The World Spins  
**By: Irrevocable Truth  
Dedicated to: X x b l a c k w i n g s x X  
Inspiration from: Out of My League, Stephen Speaks*

**.**

Kokoro Yome sat in the leftmost side of the two-seater leather sofa near the studio's window. It overlooked the city mall, right beside the park. He had his chin buried in his hand, absorbed in the ballerina's movements.

She wore her hair in a pink ponytail, strands falling across her face as she moved delicately through the floors. In her ballet shoes, leotard, and tights, her usual outfit for ballet class, her eyes danced along with her body.

There was going to be a recital, she had told him. She was going to be the star, and she had to dance to this song by Stephen Speaks. It wasn't one of those songs one usually accompanied a ballet dance with, but her female instructor had given her the task, and she didn't have plans of rejecting such an offer.

In the fourth positon, doing a demi-plie, her knees half-bended for two counts. A leap, a twirl, an elegant pose, an arabesque. All these steps and shifts, all these graceful transitions. She finished her dance with a perfect pirouette, and he didn't know what to say. So he just smiled when she looked his way.

She finished her dance, and walked towards him.

"Awe-struck much, Koko?" Sumire Shouda mocked, zipping open her lime green bag beside him and taking out her blue, two-dollar-worth plastic water bottle. She chugged down around half the contents of the bottle in one go, and he simply laughed.

He groaned as she slapped his arm. "Why are you laughing, you hopeless runt?"

"You know, _normal _people usually wait until they are_ insulted_** before** they _hit _someone," he simply deadpanned, emphasizing words as if reciting to a baby.

"Well," Sumire snapped, "your laughter insults me."

He shivered: a beautiful, serene sort of shiver, like winter passing by to say hello.

He pulled on a straight face and stared at her, his jaw firm and his facial expression pricelessly hilarious.

She pursed her lips, obviously annoyed at his too-literal interpretation of her comeback. She analyzed his face momentarily, before finally breaking out into a fit of giggles and smacking his arm for the _nth_ time.

"What is it this time?" he asked innocently. "I mean, I did what you asked and everything. You said my laughter was insulting, so I shut up, just like you wanted me to." He grinned. "Is there anything wrong with wanting such an _esteemed_ ballerina to be nothing but happy?"

She almost choked on his oversized sarcasm.

"Save the flattery for someone who buys something as cheap as that," she retorted.

"So you don't want me to flatter you?" he asked impishly.

"No, I do not," she spat, "I prefer cold, hard, bitter reality, _thankyouverymuch_." She pulled her ponytail to let her hair fall loose on her shoulders, combed through it with her fingers, then proceeded to tying it back up, making sure to get the wandering locks of her hair back into the messily-done hairdo that it was before.

"In that case, Sumire Shouda.." he paused for drama, "you're breathtakingly beautiful." His voice wasn't lying, and there was no hesitation to his words.

She blushed and looked at him incredulously, but he just gazed back at her with eyes as honest as a best friend's eyes could get.

No words were spoken between the two beings sitting there on that sofa right then and there, and if it weren't for the sound of dancers' well-rehearsed movements breezing through the room in synch with a routine for a production of _Don Quixote*_, things were almost quiet.

_But nothing is ever really quiet, because your thoughts are running around, exploring possibilities and what-ifs._

"Koko," she stood up, and he was almost taken aback by the abrupt mention of his name. She shook her head disapprovingly and whispered warily, "You're such an adorable dork, but you know that I know that already."

He rolled his eyes, and she ran off to her spot in this studio with the wide wall of mirrors and the daylight windows, this studio with the barres and syllabi for their students. She turned on the music and she danced, her instructor watching her body bend, contort, spin and balance through corrective contact lenses. But Koko's eyes weren't looking at her eloquent run through, because she was laughing, and he had never heard a more perfect rhythm in his life.

"You're whipped, you know that, right?" a voice came from beside him. He was mesmerized; he hadn't noticed Mochu sneaking up and staring at him as he watched her, slack-jawed and captivated, for the past 496 seconds or so.

Mochu came in second on his top friends list. They had met in a dance competition he was dragged along to, Mochiage being a representative for the modern dance category, and Sumire participating in, as expected, the ballet grouping. They found out soon afterwards that they lived in the same city, and from then on, every once in a while they'd all make some time to hang out together to relieve themselves of all the stress they built up.

"_What?"_ he asked skeptically. "She's my best friend, man." He said that last sentence a little softer, as if the words felt out of place, and his lips were tasting the phrase for the first time.

"Yeah, of course," Mochu waved off impassively. "All I'm saying is _dude,_ you've got to stop this stalker-like obsession of yours towards her. I don't even get how you can stand that," he shuddered, "..woman."

He laughed. "Her _name_, is Shouda Sumire."

"Well," Mochu replied, obviously not caring very much, "This Shouda Samira—"

"Sumire," he corrected. "You should really know your friends' names, you know."

"—whatever. This Shouda girl of yours—"

"She's not mine," came his interjection.

"…Just let me finish, why don't you?" Mochu said exasperatedly.

He raised his hands up in defense. "Hey, I was just saying—"

"Just," the other cut in, "shut up."

Koko gave up, and he spoke. "You're two very darn confused people, alright? Face your feelings, man, and don't be such a wimp." Mochu crossed his arms over his chest, finished with what he had to say. He was not a love guru, but the sight of both of them in denial made him sick.

"That's—" Koko was about to say something in reply, but he saw Sumire walking towards them from his peripheral vision, and he stopped himself.

"Why hello, Nitwit Number Two," she smirked at Mochu. "Missed you."

"Missed you too, PMS-y woman," Mochu taunted in response.

It was beyond his realm of understanding how the three of them got along.

"Done with practice?" Koko asked.

"Yeah," she grabbed the face towel that hung on the sofa's armrest, wiping off sweat from her forehead and the back of her neck. "Man, I'm worn out. Where are we heading today? Can we grab a bite before we go to wherever?"

She glanced at Mochu, but he just shrugged, so she shifted her gaze towards Koko. "Is that alright?" she asked.

"You'll eat like a pig and make us pay for your food again," he mocked.

"That is not true, you jerk!" She gasped in denial. "I do _not_ eat like a pig, and for your information, paying for the food is a _gentleman's_ proper behavior." She thought about her words for a moment, before sneering, "Oh wait, I forgot, you _aren't_ a gentleman."

"Well, it took you long enough to realize." Mochu chirped.

She genuinely laughed, before running to the changing room with her duffel bag slung lazily over her shoulder.

When she came back out the two guys were waiting for her by the door. She waved goodbye to her teacher and co-dancers, before joining up with them.

"Thanks for waiting," she said, before slipping her arms in theirs: the right in Mochu's, the left in Koko's.

They walked like that, all the way to their destination, the local entertainment center where they could play arcade games and watch movies to their hearts' content.

Mochu had drunk too much iced tea, and for some reason it had the same effect on him beer had on normal people. He kept on laughing boisterously, catching the attentions of at least ten or so innocent by-standers, and he continued to slur out nonsense like, "I once had a pink chicken with pig nostrils and he made me go _beeebooobeeebooo_".

Koko and Sumire simply laughed at their "drunken" friend, all until he screamed out, "Today!"

"Today, my dear friends," he declared as he stood up on the wooden chair they were sitting on, "today is the day where you all swear to _neverevereverever_ let –hik- let the person you love be swept away by someone else before _you_ do while you still have the chance to," he paused here, his brain probably temporarily falling asleep, before he continued, "have the chance to.. live and laugh and.. love them."

Koko stared wide-eyed at his friend's profound announcement, and Sumire blushed.

Mochu's gathered audience of around fifty people applauded, and he bowed graciously. "Now, dudes," he said as he got down from his stage and grabbed Koko and Sumire's hand, "let us go take a picture at the photo booth to commemorate this day!"

"Wait," Sumire called, laughing and following him all the same. "This is just too much."

Pretty soon they arrived in the photo booth, and Mochu punched in the preferences. "Get ready, you two," he exclaimed. They laughed because the box was so cramped for the three of them.

_Three.._

She smiled at the camera, ready for the flash to come any second and capture such a glorious moment with her friends, away from pristine movements and gracefulness, and just being with the people she loved. It was bliss.

_Two…_

He was smiling, looking at the camera at first, but her smiling face caught his attention and he had to take it all in and make a mental image of it to remember. It was frightening, really, the feelings that were surfacing. It all seemed too surreal.

_One._

Finally his heart won the battle with reason, and he kissed her cheek, and the lights blinked fast and that one moment, where she felt like she was falling and flying, and where he was thinking how this was all out of his league, was captured.

**.**

**.**

***Disclaimer**: Gakuen Alice belongs to Higuchi Tachibana. Out of My League is by Stephen Speaks (a band name). Don Quixote is a ballet [originally] staged in four acts and eight scenes, choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music by Ludwig Minkus (and if you want to know more about it, you can research it on the internet, Wikipedia has an article about it). I do not own any of these, and I do not claim to own them :)

**Author's Note**: So, this is my first time writing a KokoSumire fic. (I'm trying out a lot of pairings these days, aren't I?) Any comments, corrections, or criticisms will be highly appreciated.


	4. Whisper Beneath The Moon

**Whisper Beneath The Moon  
**By: Irrevocable Truth  
Dedicated to: Y i n Y a n g E q u i n o x  
Inspiration: Rascal Flatts' songs*

.

_Six years, Mikan.  
_Six years since you left.  
Two thousand one hundred and ninety two days since you left, and I'm still as broken and shattered as that day when you walked away from my life.

You'd think I'd forget, but I can't.

And every second of my life, there's that piece of you.

When my secretary brings me coffee before a corporate meeting, I wonder if you had coffee with your breakfast. Did you have sunny side-up eggs and bacon shaped into irritating happy faces, like you used to make me on the Sundays when I was sick and stuck in my special-star room? When I get a fortune cookie with my meal at a Chinese restaurant, I ask myself if you still believe in destiny. I look at my client's white cat, and I hope to myself that when you see black cats, you recall, even for just a fragment of a moment, me, too.

And every second I'm reminded of you, a little part of me dies a little more.

.

.

What hurts the most, Mikan, was watching you walk away.

Because that was my chance to grab you, to hold you tight, to never let go. To whisper I love you, to tell you I wanted violins at our wedding, to say I'd be there and I wouldn't let anyone tear us apart, like what they were trying to do at that very moment.

But instead, I froze when you hugged me goodbye, when you said, _smile for me_. Because on the 7th of February of that year, Natsume Hyuuga was a coward, Natsume Hyuuga was afraid.

Afraid his darkness would consume your sunshine.

.

.

Even the stars remind me of you.

Because once upon a time, we were lying down on the rooftop, staring at the blinking balls of gas. You whispered that night, _this feels like heaven_.

I looked at you and saw you with your eyes closed, with your lips curved slightly upward in a serene sort of smile, with your chest heaving up and down with your shallow breathing.

And at that moment, I couldn't agree more.  
Because you were with me.

.

.

Sometimes, when I wake up at two-thirty in the morning, I wonder whether you're in a part of the world where it's night time, where you've just arrived home, drunk and wasted, to an apartment, living in with your boyfriend of six months.

Or if you're living with a French musician who taught you how to paint, or if you're working at the shoe department of some store in Vancouver.

What you're feeling, Mikan, I want to know.

And I can't fall asleep sometimes because I miss your warmth. I've been so accustomed to heat because of my alice, but your warmth was special, like I could bask in it forever. Pressed against my body, my forehead against yours, your breathing soft and gentle..

Your warmth radiated happiness, and I haven't felt that in a very long time.

With every passing day you were gone I could feel that warmth disintegrating from me, and by the one thousand seven hundred and sixty seventh day, all that was left was a gaping hole where that warmth used to be.

.

.

You knocked.

Three days before you left, you knocked at my door.

I answered it. You looked into my eyes with that heartbroken expression of yours. And without a word, you cried. I pulled you in, closer to me, and you cried, still, and I asked you what it was_. _You answered me with three words.

But I already knew, because you knocked.  
You usually come right in.

_I'm leaving, Natsume._

.

.

_Six years, Mikan._

A million questions race through my head, but I only need you to answer one.

_Is it too late?_

.

.

***Disclaimer**: Higuchi Tachibana owns Gakuen Alice, and Rascal Flatts owns their songs. I just own a laptop and a deprived music playlist.

**Author's Note**: If you're wondering which Rascal Flatts songs (which you probably aren't), they're _Here_ _Comes Goodbye, What Hurts The Most,_ and _Words I Couldn't Say_. You should go check them out; they're nice, and I probably listened to each of them five times as I was writing this :)) Review, please, just to maybe say hello? ;)


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